The Turkish religious authority, Diyanet, filed a criminal complaint accusing well-known lawyer Feyza Altun of insulting religious values after she strongly criticised Islamic law on social media.
https://balkaninsight.com/2024/02/2...eeks-lawyers-prosecution-for-insulting-islam/
Turkish public broadcaster TRT reported on Tuesday that the Turkish religious authority, Diyanet, has filed a criminal complaint against lawyer Feyza Altun, who is already under investigation and was briefly detained because of a comment she made on social media about sharia (Islamic law).
“Diyanet filed a criminal complaint against lawyer Feyza Altun on the grounds that she ‘insulted religious values’ on her social media account,” TRT wrote.
The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office had already launched an investigation on Monday into whether Altun was responsible for “inciting people to hatred and hostility”.
Altun was taken into police custody on Monday after religious and Islamist groups targeted her on social media, calling for her arrest, but she was released on Tuesday under a court order.
Under the terms of her release, Altun must present herself at a police station twice a week and has been banned from travelling abroad.
“For two nights, I struggled with thousands of tweets from people who said they would put me to the sword and that I would become their concubine,” Altun told media in front of the court after she was released.
Some social media users targeted Altun for insulting sharia in a post on X on February 18 in which she wrote “F**k sharia” in response to another user. Altun deleted the post after facing a backlash.
“May Allah put her in his hell. Arrest Feyza Altun,” Ahmet Mahmut Unlu, also known as Cubbeli Ahmet Hoca, a well-known fundamentalist Muslim preacher wrote on X on Monday.
Altun defended her beliefs, however.
“For me, what you call sharia is the Taliban mentality that stones women on the streets. In this context, I stand behind my word,” she wrote on X on Monday.
“That regime will not be implemented in this country either. Modern secular law applies in this country,” she added.
Sharia is religious law based on based on Islamic scripture. When modern-day Turkey was established in 1923 as a secular republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, sharia was abolished.
